These statements show the reasons why the _fried_ food of all kinds is injurious. Fat is an unhealthful aliment, and when heated becomes still more so. This mode of cooking, then, should be given up by every housekeeper, who intends to take all reasonable means of preserving the health of her family. There are an abundance of other modes of preparing food, without resorting to one which involves danger, especially to children and invalids, whose powers of digestion are feeble.
The most common modes of preparing unhealthful food, is by frying food, and by furnishing _bread that is heavy, or sour, or so newly baked_, as to become clammy and indigestible when chewed. Though there are many stomachs that can for a long time take such food without trouble, it always is injurious to weak stomachs, and often renders a healthful stomach a weak one. A housekeeper that will always keep a supply of sweet, light bread on her table, and avoid oily dishes, oily cooking, and condiments, will double the chances of good health for her family.
Minuteness of division is a great aid to easy digestion. For this reason food should be well chewed before swallowing, not only to divide it minutely, but to mix it with the saliva, which aids in digestion.
The cooking of food, in most cases, does not alter its nature; it only renders it more tender, and thus more easily divided and digested.
When a person is feverish and loathes food, it should never be given, as the stomach has not sufficient gastric juice to secure its digestion. The practice of tempting the sick by favorite articles, should therefore be avoided.
“_Water_” says Dr. Pereira, “is probably the natural drink of all adults. It serves several important purposes in the animal economy:--firstly, it repairs the loss of the aqueous part of the blood, caused by evaporation, and the action of the secreting and exhaling organs; secondly, it is a solvent of various alimentary substances, and, therefore, assists the stomach in digestion, though, if taken in very large quantities, it may have an opposite effect, by diluting the gastric juice; thirdly, it is a nutritive agent, that is, it assists in the formation of the solid parts of the body.”